1. Field of the Invention
The invention relates generally to weight loss maintenance, obesity treatment, and more particularly to methods and apparatus for developing specific and customized weight maintenance plans.
2. Description of Related Art
The weight loss industry in the United States has become a multi-billion dollar industry. Most weight management programs are successful at producing weight loss but unsuccessful at keeping the weight off. This is because most provide specific advice for weight loss but no specific advice for maintenance of weight loss. Instead, they rely primarily on chronic caloric restriction, which is effective for weight loss but not for weight loss maintenance. Any advice given about physical activity is very general, such as exercise more. There are not currently any methods or apparatus that allow development of specific goals for weight loss maintenance. For example in a weight management program such as Weight Watchers™ a participant who is trying to lose weight or maintain a certain weight is allowed a certain number of food points per day/week. If that participant also exercises the allowable number of food points is increased. However, the amount of exercise or activity is not quantified and the general weight management plan or the food points that are recommended do not take into consideration dietary supplements, additional weight loss products, or other innovative weight maintenance strategies that may impact the long-term intake requirements. Most weight management programs emphasize continuous long-term caloric restriction with little or minimal adjustments for both the amount of the participant's initial weight loss or for optimizing their long-term weight loss maintenance plan.
Weight loss and weight loss maintenance are different physiological and behavioral processes, and many of the strategies that work best for weight loss (primarily caloric restriction) may not be optimal or as effective for weight loss maintenance or simply weight maintenance. For example, the process of successful weight loss requires strategies that are typically carried out for relatively short periods of time (less then 6 months) and require a negative energy balance (eating less calories then one is expending), while the process of successful weight loss maintenance requires strategies that can be carried out for very long periods of time (many years or a lifetime) and require the participant to remain in energy balance (eating the same amount of calories as one expends over time). Caloric restriction (dieting) is a common strategy that works well for short periods of time and produces a large negative energy balance and therefore produces successful weight loss. Many people have succeeded at using this strategy to lose weight and most weight management programs focus on this strategy. Caloric restriction however is a strategy that is very hard for most people to sustain for long periods of time. Caloric restriction has proven to be a non-effective strategy for long-term weight loss maintenance.
While strictly increasing physical activity is not as effective as caloric restriction, many experts recognize that increasing physical activity is a better strategy for long-term weight loss maintenance. However, there is currently no way to develop specific and individualized goals for how much physical activity is required for weight loss maintenance. Because weight loss and weight maintenance are different processes a different strategy, plan or emphasis may need to be used to optimize success for both initial weight loss and for maintaining the reduction in body weight long-term. The major barrier to successful maintenance of weight loss is the changes in human physiology and energy metabolism that occur as one loses body weight. These changes leave individuals who have lost weight with lower caloric needs than before weight loss and necessitate permanent changes in caloric intake and/or physical activity in order to meet the new, lower caloric requirements. For example, when a person goes on a diet and restricts their calorie intake, they lose body weight and as a result their metabolism (energy expenditure, the calories they burn) also decreases. This is why people generally lose weight faster at the beginning of a dieting period than near the end. At the end of the diet period their metabolism or energy expenditure has decreased so that the same reduction in food calories or the same diet plan does not produce as large of negative energy balance and thus weight loss slows or stops while they continue the caloric restriction. When they eventual stop restricting calories, the decrease in energy metabolism results in their body burning fewer calories and in an increased likelihood of a positive energy balance (energy intake greater then energy expenditure) and thus weight regain occurs. This is also why many crash/fad diets are so popular—because by the time the metabolism slows by a significant amount, they have lost some weight quickly which represents a short term successful weight loss. However, this is also why most fad/crash diets fail. Because not only do most people begin increasing the daily caloric intake again, but they do so while their metabolism is operating at a reduced level from the weight reduction. Thus, the result is that not only do people gain back the original weight that was lost, but they often gain additional weight as well. The caloric restriction strategy for weight loss works well for short-term weight loss but sets the person up to regain weight once they can no longer adhere to the diet and restrict food calories. Thus a vicious circle of weight loss followed by weight regain is formed.
For these reasons, a weight loss maintenance program is required in addition to a weight loss program for comprehensive and sustainable weight management. Because of the reasons discussed, an optimal and successful weight maintenance program will differ from a weight loss program. When a person loses weight their (smaller mass) body requires less energy (or food calories) each day, but their appetite (drive to eat) does not automatically decrease just because of the weight loss. Thus an energy gap is created between the food energy a body desires and the smaller amount of food energy it needs to maintain the new reduced body size. This energy gap causes the body to regain the weight that was lost unless the person compensates with new strategies that take into account and minimize the gap.
Accordingly it would be advantageous to provide an individualized weight loss maintenance program that takes into account and compensates for the energy gap that is created following a weight loss. It would also be advantageous to provide such a program that considers one or more variables such as pre-weight loss body weight, body fat percentage, types and duration of exercise, types of food generally eaten, supplements, and post-weight loss body fat percentage, exercise, supplements, and types of food eaten.